Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment on Fri­day re­ject­ed a rul­ing from the Unit­ed Na­tions’ top court or­der­ing the South Amer­i­can coun­try to re­frain from hold­ing elec­tions for of­fi­cials who sup­pos­ed­ly would over­see a re­source-rich re­gion in neigh­bour­ing Guyana that both na­tions claim as their own.

The gov­ern­ment of Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro in a state­ment un­der­scored its his­tor­i­cal po­si­tion to not rec­og­nize the ju­ris­dic­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice and as­sert­ed that in­ter­na­tion­al law does not al­low the body to “in­ter­fere” or “at­tempt to pro­hib­it” an elec­tion.

The gov­ern­ment’s state­ment came a day af­ter the court, based in The Hague, is­sued the rul­ing at the re­quest of Guyana, which ac­cused Venezuela of vi­o­lat­ing an ear­li­er or­der by plan­ning to hold elec­tions May 25 for a gov­er­nor and oth­er of­fi­cials to ad­min­is­ter the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

The Es­se­qui­bo “is an in­alien­able part of the Venezue­lan ter­ri­to­ry and a lega­cy of our lib­er­a­tors,” ac­cord­ing to the state­ment. “Its de­fense is a his­tor­i­cal, con­sti­tu­tion­al, and a moral man­date that unites the en­tire Bo­li­var­i­an Home­land. No in­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure, ju­di­cial black­mail, or for­eign tri­bunal will make us back down from this con­vic­tion.”

The area un­der dis­pute rep­re­sents two-thirds of Guyana and is rich in gold, di­a­monds, tim­ber and oth­er nat­ur­al re­sources. It al­so is lo­cat­ed close to mas­sive off­shore oil de­posits, with cur­rent pro­duc­tion av­er­ag­ing some 650,000 bar­rels per day.

Venezuela has al­ways con­sid­ered Es­se­qui­bo as its own be­cause the re­gion was with­in its bound­aries dur­ing the Span­ish colo­nial pe­ri­od. It has long dis­missed the bor­der drawn by in­ter­na­tion­al ar­bi­tra­tors in 1899, when Guyana was still a British colony.

Af­ter years of fruit­less me­di­a­tion, Guyana asked the world court in 2018 to rule that the 1899 bor­der de­ci­sion is valid and bind­ing. Venezuela ar­gues that a 1966 agree­ment to re­solve the dis­pute ef­fec­tive­ly nul­li­fied the orig­i­nal ar­bi­tra­tion.

The case is still pend­ing in court while ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries keep ris­ing.

In late 2023, Maduro threat­ened to an­nex the re­gion by force af­ter hold­ing a ref­er­en­dum ask­ing vot­ers if Es­se­qui­bo should be turned in­to a Venezue­lan state. Days lat­er, Caribbean lead­ers, joined by Brazil and the U.N., held an emer­gency sum­mit where Guyana and Venezuela agreed to re­frain from us­ing force. But the dis­pute con­tin­ues.

In March, Guyana’s pres­i­dent de­nounced an in­cur­sion by an armed Venezue­lan naval ves­sel in dis­put­ed wa­ters that are home to a ma­jor off­shore oil de­posit be­ing de­vel­oped by Exxon­Mo­bil. Venezue­lan Vice Pres­i­dent Del­cy Ro­dríguez dis­put­ed Ali’s claims and called Exxon­Mo­bil’s oil in­stal­la­tions “il­le­gal.”

Venezue­lan vot­ers will head to the polls lat­er this month to elect gov­er­nors and law­mak­ers. —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)